Random Thoughts (August 6, 2007)

A few random thoughts while wondering why the Mariners catch so much heat for trading the Red Sox Jason Varitek and Derek Lowe for Heathcliff Slocumb after they took Jamie Moyer from the Sox a year earlier for Darren Bragg... Brady Quinn is dumb. Really dumb. So dumb that I might pay for him to get counseling from Pacman Jones on how to function as an NFL player. People who felt bad for Quinn when the former Notre Dame quarterback when he slid out of the Top 10 in the 2007 NFL Draft now should feel some pain for general manager Phil Savage and the Cleveland Browns organization. Savage traded the team's second round pick (No. 36 overall) and next year's first round pick to Dallas for pick No. 22 to select the free-falling Quinn, a player some thought the team would take with pick No. 3 (they took Wisconsin tackle Joe Thomas). After the Draft, Quinn said all the right things about getting to camp on time and trying to beat out Charlie Frye for the starting quarterback job. So, of course, he is holding out for more money and has yet to practice with the team. Even if he signed tonight, Quinn would be so far behind that he'd be lucky to win the job by Halloween. Jerry Jones and the Cowboys can't wait for that Top 5 pick they'll be getting from Cleveland... Curt Schilling comes back tonight for the Red Sox against the Angels. Schilling should be rested and ready to pitch the Sox to the AL East title and hopefully the American League and World Series championships. As I have said many times in Schill's abscence, the addition of No. 38 to a rotation of Josh Beckett, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Tim Wakefield and Jon Lester gives the Red Sox a huge advantage over their competition, especially with a bullpen featuring Jonathan Papelbon, Eric Gagne, Hideki Okajima, Manny Delcarmen and Mike Timlin... Jermaine O'Neal of the Indiana Pacers said over the weekend at a charity basketball game in Los Angeles that he wants the Pacers to trade him to the Lakers. The teams have had talks since the end of the season but they continue to stall on Indiana's insistence on L.A. including both Lamar Odom and Andrew Bynum in the deal. In support of the Lakers, that is a wise choice. O'Neal is an All-Star player -- and the type of star that might just keep Kobe Bryant happy enough to keep firing shots up for the purple and gold -- but giving up Odom and Bynum is too much. The Lakers would be wise to make Bynum, a young and unproven center, the player they ship to Indiana and then build around Kobe, O'Neal and Odom... Here come the Yankees. Still seven behind the Sox in the AL East but just a half-game behind Detroit for the Wild Card... Still no Asante Samuel at Patriots training camp. Starting to get worried... Enjoy Schilling's return tonight...